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China Puts Up a Fighter Beijing's fifth-generation military challenge to the U.S. By RICHARD D. FISHER JR. ZHUKOVSKY, Russia—With few exceptions, Beijing rarely says much of substance about its ongoing military build-up or its strategic thinking. But the overriding message from the recent Moscow Airshow and other airshows, plus occasional interviews with Chinese and Russian engineers, is that Beijing is not conceding next-generation air superiority to anyone, least of all the United States. Exhibit A is Beijing's long-running effort to build a fifth-generation fighter plane equivalent to the U.S. F-22 and F-35. Such planes use extensive stealth and advanced radar...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised American Muslims for enriching the nation's culture at a dinner to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country," Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the holiday's daily fast. The president joined Cabinet secretaries, members of the diplomatic corps and lawmakers to pay tribute to what he called "a great religion and its commitment to justice and progress."

Within just 2 years, current Washington leadership will have raised the level of national debt by 30%. Moreover, based upon their own projections, today's national debt will have double by 2019. As I mentioned earlier, based upon today's population of 300 million Americans, our government will have indebted each of us to the tune of more than $63,333. If the population were grow to 450 million by 2019, then every man, woman and child will hold title to just $47,499 in national debt. At the rate we are going we are levying a lifetime of high taxes upon our children....

Listen Live: Sound Off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9 a.m. to noon ET (Daily Thread)Sound Off Connecticut is a popular conservative/libertarian call in talk show hosted by Jim Vicevich weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon ET. Although based in Connecticut, the show welcomes callers from all over the United States! This is your chance to sound off America! Call into the show toll free (800) 966-9842! Listen to the LIVE AUDIO STREAM at http://wtic.com - it's free and NO registration is required! If you're in southern New England listen over the air to WTIC 1080 AM, the 50,000 watt...

My friend and I were having a discussion. He says there are no more than 15 truly honest, conservative, moral, politicians now serving in the House and Senate. I disagreed with him and said there are many good public servants serving their country. Can you Freepers help me out and give me some names of good politicians that we should not oust in 2010?

The Dems have heald this for many years, this is the 10th straight week the GOP has held it.

Ezekiel Emanuel is upset. The president's health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run "communitarian" health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn't quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin. Where does she get off attacking him? Sarah Palin, it seems forever Sarah Palin. And he wonders, as have so many others, what it takes to put a stake through her heart? People should listen to him, not...

If the White House is trying to figure how it lost control of the debate over healthcare in August, it could take a look at Glenn Beck’s television and radio ratings. The conservative talk radio host, who also has an hourly slot on Fox News every day, has seen his viewer numbers soar even as opponents have pressed companies to withdraw advertising from the show.

In recent surveys on economic and personal freedom, conservative states such as Texas, Kansas and so on have scored high marks while liberal states such as California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York has scored low. New Hampshire scored big on both economic and personal liberty proving once again the power of private sector and low taxes against socialist oppression. California, that socialist paradise that liberals love ranked rock bottom on nearly all the surveys. Where does Maine stand? Not surprisingly Maine scored very low on economic liberty. Maine as you all remember is the worst state to set up a...

Having just won a revolution, the Founders were faced with constituting a new nation. Under the constitutional plan devised by the Founders, they had to identify who were the members of the new nation. They called these members “citizens” of the United States. Thus, they created our first generation of United States “citizens.” These persons were either born abroad or in the British colonies before July 4, 1776 or abroad or in the new States thereafter, but in all cases inhabited one of the colonies or States and were loyal to the American revolution. The Founders under Article II grandfathered...

A new earthquake-resistant structural system for buildings, just successfully tested in Japan, will not only help a multi-story building hold itself together during a violent earthquake, but also return it to standing up straight on its foundation afterward, true and plumb, with damage confined to a few easily replaceable parts. The team that designed the system was led by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Illinois. During testing on a massive shake table, the system survived simulated earthquakes in excess of magnitude 7, bigger than either the 1994 Northridge earthquake or the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California....

Empire of the Sun ( John Williams at his very "Choral" best) Edward Scissorhands ( Danny Elfman!) Eddie and the Cruisers ( Tender Years!) The Empire Strikes Back ( OOps...More John Williams) Exodus ( No not Bob Marley) Elegy ( The movie might not be for everyone, but the music is) Evita ( Madonna didn't do it justice, try Julie Covington) Edith Piaf (Possibly my favourite movie Bio) Eyes Wide Shut (silly movie, fine soundtrack…added to by the underrated Jocelyn Pook) Empire Records (Lots of the major songs are not on the soundtrack…nevertheless)

The federal government’s “footprint” in the housing market In a review of the 2010 budget, the federal government’s “footprint” in the housing market was broad and deep. In addition to the support provided by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Bank System and Farm Credit to the housing market, there were roughly 177 housing programs in the administration’s 2010 budget in more than 11 agencies, including the Federal Reserve (4 programs), Treasury Department (6), HUD (93), Department of Agriculture (46), Department of Defense (8), Department of Education (2), Department of Homeland Security (3), Department of Justice (1), Department...

This week, President Obama made two incredibly dangerous and arrogant decisions involving the war on terror. The creation of an interrogations unit to be supervised directly by the White House is a breathtaking power grab by Mr. Obama, who has already demonstrated his penchant for expanding executive control by appointing three dozen issue-specific "czars" who are accountable to no one but him. Mr. Obama now aims to run terrorist interrogations right from the Oval Office.

Understanding the President’s legislative options for health care reform Posted on September 2nd, 2009 by kbh in featured, health   Members of the House and Senate will return to Washington the evening of Tuesday, September 8th. Over the following several days they will compare constituent feedback on health care reform. There will be thousands of small informal discussions – Members talking to each other on the House and Senate floor during votes, in the hallway, in the gym, over lunch or coffee or drinks.The House and Senate Democratic leaders will convene caucus meetings of all their Members to get more...

A group of local Muslims (Florida) have complained about "hate speech and bigotry" coming from the anti-Islamic Dove World Outreach Center. Approximately two dozen Muslims spoke in front of the Alachua County School Board airing their complaints about the "Islam of the Devil" shirts which some of the students have gotten from Dove World and worn to school. One speaker stated,

European countries like Britain will be forced to take on more refugees from African and Middle-East countries under sweeping new plans proposed by the EU. The EU Commission wants member states to share the burden of the influx of refugees from Africa, which it says falls heaviest on southern countries like Italy, Malta and Spain, where most illegal migrants arrive. The proposal will spark fears that the UK will now have to take on thousands more immigrants from African countries under some form of quota system. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210689/EU-set-guidelines-number-immigrants-European-country-take.html#ixzz0PxP9B2SP

Well, the day finally came for me to actually be a first-hand witness of why knowing and understanding English is so vitally important when one gets a driver's license. My Florida license expires next month and I will be on tour so renewing it in Florida will be impossible. So I decided to finally get a Tennessee license although I still claim Florida as my legal domicile. I gathered my official documents as required by the state of Tennessee for anyone getting a TN license for the first time. It was a busy day at the DMV (when isn't it...

Here are the news stories, editorials, and videos that conservatives dugg Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Please take a moment to digg these articles at Digg.com, then get back over here! What is Digg? And why should I care?

Sep 2, 6:26 AM EDT N. Indiana man dies in wood chipper accident ATWOOD, Ind. (AP) -- The Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department says a 37-year-old man has been killed after apparently being pulled into a wood chipper. James Vician of Plymouth was feeding cut tree limbs into a wood chipper just before 9 a.m. Tuesday in Atwood, located about 20 miles southeast of South Bend. A coworker who was across the street returned to the wood chipper and could not find Vician. He called police, believing Vician may have been pulled into the machine. When police arrived, they discovered evidence...